sand. My father took me to a little cove close by, where there was not
much surf, as the place was protected by a rocky point of land which
bounded it on one side. Behind this point of land the waves rolled up
quietly upon a sandy beach. My father went down upon the slope of this
beach, to a place a little below where the highest waves came, and
began to dig a hole in the sand. He called me to come and help him.
The waves impeded our work a little, but we persevered until we had
dug a hole about a foot deep. We put our clock-weights into this hole
and covered them over. We then ran back up upon the beach. The waves
that came up every moment over the place soon smoothed the surface of
the sand again, and made it look as if nothing had been done there. My
father measured the distance from the place where he had deposited his
treasure up to a certain great white rock upon the shore exactly
opposite to it, so as to be able to find the place again, and then we
went back to our company. They were collected on the rocks in little
groups, wet and tired, and in great confusion, but rejoiced at having
escaped with their lives. Some of the last of the sailors were then
coming over in the sling. The captain himself came last of all.
"There were some huts near the place on the shore, where the men made
good fires, and we warmed and dried ourselves. The storm abated a
great deal in a few hours, and the tide went down, so that we could go
off to the ship before night to get some provisions. The next morning
the men could work at the ship very easily, and they brought, all the
passengers' baggage on shore. My father got his trunk with the clock
in it. A day or two afterward some sloops came to the place, and took
us all away to carry us to Quebec. Just before we embarked on board
the sloops, my father and I, watching a good opportunity, dug up our
weights out of the sand, and put them back safely in their places in
the clock-box."
"Is that the end?" asked Phonny, when Beechnut paused.
"Yes," replied Beechnut, "I believe I had better make that the end."
"I think it is a very interesting and well-told story," said Madeline.
"And do you feel very tired?"
"No," said Beechnut. "On the contrary, I feel all the better for my
ride. I believe I will sit up a little while."
So saying, he raised himself in the waggon and sat up, and began to
look about him.
"What a wonderful voyage you had, Beechnut!" said Phonny. "But I never
knew before that you were shipwrecked."
"Well, in point of fact," replied Beechnut, "I never was shipwrecked."
"Never was!" exclaimed Phonny. "Why, what is all this story that you
have been telling us, then?"
"Embellishment," said Beechnut quietly.
"Embellishment!" repeated Phonny, more and more amazed.
"Yes," said Beechnut.
"Then you were not wrecked at all?" said Phonny.
"No," replied Beechnut.
"And how did you get to the land?" asked Phonny.
"Why, we sailed quietly up the St. Lawrence," replied Beechnut, "and
landed safely at Quebec, as other vessels do."
"And the clock-weights?" asked Phonny.
"All embellishment," said Beechnut. "My father had no such clock, in
point of fact. He put his money in a bag, his bag in his chest, and
his chest in the hold, and it came as safe as the captain's sextant."
"And the iceberg and the rainbow?" said Madeline.
"Embellishment, all embellishment," said Beechnut.
"Dear me!" said Phonny, "I thought it was all true."
"Did you?" said Beechnut. "I am sorry that you were so deceived, and
I am sure it was not my fault, for I gave you your choice of a true
story or an invention, and you chose the invention."
"Yes," said Phonny, "so we did."
THE GREAT STONE FACE
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little
boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone
Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be
seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its
features.
And what was the Great Stone Face?
Embosomed among a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so
spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these
good people dwelt in log huts, with the black forest all around them,
on the steep and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in
comfortable farmhouses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle
slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were
congregated into populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet,
tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region, had
been caught and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the
machinery of cotton factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in
short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. But all of them,
grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the Great
Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this
grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors.
The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of
majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain
by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a
position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble
the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous
giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice.
There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height;
the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they
could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one
end of the valley to the other. True it is, that if the spectator
approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and
could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in
chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps, however, the
wondrous features would again be seen; and the further he withdrew
from them, the more like a human face, with all its original divinity
intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with
the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it,
the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.
It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood
with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were
noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were
the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its
affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look at
it. According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of
its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over
it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the
sunshine.
As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it.
The child's name was Ernest.
"Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage smiled on him, "I wish
that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must
needs be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should
love him dearly."
"If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may
see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that."
"What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest.
"Pray tell me all about it!"
So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her,
when she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of
things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story,
nevertheless, so very old, that even the Indians, who formerly
inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom,
as they affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and
whispered by the wind among the tree-tops. The purport was that, at
some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined
to become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose
countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great
Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned people, and young ones likewise,
in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this
old prophecy. But others, who had seen more of the world, had watched
and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a
face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his
neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events,
the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared.
"O mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his
head, "I do hope that I shall live to see him!"
His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it
was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. So
she only said to him, "Perhaps you may."
And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He
spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was
dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting
her much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In
this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a
mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the
fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen
in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had
had no teacher, save only that the Great Stone Face became one to him.
When the toil of day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he
began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him
a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of
veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a
mistake, although the Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest
than at all the world besides. But the secret was, that the boy's
tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not
see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became his peculiar
portion.
About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the
great man, foretold from ages ago, who was to bear a resemblance to
the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a
distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had
set up as a shopkeeper. His name--but I could never learn whether it
was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and
success in life--was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed
by Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in
what the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and
owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of
the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap
after heap to the mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth.
The cold regions of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of
the Arctic Circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot
Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up
the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the East
came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the
effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large pearls. The
ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty
whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on
it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his
grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that
whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew
yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited
him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had
become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only
to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and
resolved to go back thither, and end his days where he was born. With
this purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a
palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.
As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that
Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long
and vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and
undeniable similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more
ready to believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld
the splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of
his father's old weather-beaten farmhouse. The exterior was of marble,
so dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole structure might
melt away in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr.
Gathergold, in his young play-days, before his fingers were gifted
with the touch of transmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow.
It had a richly ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath
which was a lofty door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind
of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the sea. The
windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were
composed, respectively, of but one enormous pane of glass, so
transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than even the
vacant atmosphere. Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the
interior of this palace; but it was reported, and with good semblance
of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that
whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or gold in this;
and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a glittering
appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes
there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so inured to
wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless where
the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his eyelids.
In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers,
with magnificent furniture; then a whole troop of black and white
servants, the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic
person, was expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest,
meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the
noble man, the man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at
length to be made manifest to his native valley. He knew, boy as he
was, that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his
vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and
assume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile
of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not
that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the
living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountain side. While
the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he always
did, that the Great Stone Face returned his gaze and looked kindly at
him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching swiftly along the
winding road.
"Here he comes!" cried the group of people who were assembled to
witness the arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!"
A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy
of a little old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand
had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered
about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made
still thinner by pressing them forcibly together.
"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure
enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come,
at last!"
And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe
that here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there
chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children,
stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled
onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most
piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw--the very same that had
clawed together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach window,
and dropped some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the
great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as
suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with
an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the
people bellowed--
"He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"
But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid
visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded
by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious
features which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect
cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to say?
"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"
The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants
of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life,
save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go
apart and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to
their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable,
inasmuch as Ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and
neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew
not that the Great Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and that
the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's
heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts.
They knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be
learned from books, and a better life than could be molded on the
defaced example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest know that the
thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields
and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, were of a
higher tone than those which all men shared with him. A simple
soul--simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy--he
beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the valley, and still
wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his
appearance.
By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
part of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and spirit
of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of
him but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin.
Since the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally
conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after all,
between the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic
face upon the mountain-side. So the people ceased to honor him during
his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his
decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory was brought up in
connection with the magnificent palace which he had built, and which
had long ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of
strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to visit that famous
natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr. Gathergold being
discredited and thrown into the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to
come.
It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years
before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard
fighting, had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be
called in history, he was known in camps and on the battle-field under
the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being
now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military
life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that
had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose
of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where he
remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and
their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the renowned warrior
with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more
enthusiastically, it being affirmed that now, at last, the likeness of
the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. An aid-de-camp of Old
Blood-and-Thunder, travelling through the valley, was said to have
been struck with the resemblance. Moreover the schoolmates and early
acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to
the best of their recollection, the aforesaid general had been
exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy, only that the
idea had never occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was
the excitement throughout the valley; and many people, who had never
once thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for years before, now
spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how
General Blood-and-Thunder looked.
On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people of
the valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the
sylvan banquet was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the
Rev. Dr. Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good
things set before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in
whose honor they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared
space of the woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a
vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone
Face. Over the general's chair, which was a relic from the home of
Washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel
profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath
which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest raised himself on
his tip-toes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but
there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts
and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general
in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked
ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among
the throng. So Ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust
quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old
Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on
the battle-field. To console himself, he turned toward the Great Stone
Face, which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back
and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. Meantime,
however, he could overhear the remarks of various individuals, who
were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant
mountain-side.
"'Tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for
joy.
"Wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another.
"Like! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
looking-glass!" cried a third. "And why not? He's the greatest man of
this or any other age, beyond a doubt."
And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which
communicated electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a
thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the
mountains, until you might have supposed that the Great Stone Face had
poured its thunder-breath into the cry. All these comments, and this
vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he
think of questioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had
found its human counterpart. It is true, Ernest had imagined that this
long-looked-for personage would appear in the character of a man of
peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. But,
taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he
contended that Providence should choose its own method of blessing
mankind, and could conceive that this great end might be effected even
by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to
order matters so.
"The general! the general!" was now the cry. "Hush! silence! Old
Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech."
Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
drunk amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the
banner drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in
the same glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great
Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had
testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-worn
and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an
iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies,
were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and even if
the Great Stone Face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder
traits would still have tempered it.